AL06 - Murder in Montmartre al-6

by Cara Black

  She rubbed her gloved hand over the fogged-up glass. More worries assailed her. Cloclo bore a grudge against the “crude” mec, the one Zoe Tardou had just described. She might say something to get rid of him. Yet if Cloclo did speak to him, Aimée would be ready and only seconds away.

  Several young men, unemployed judging by the time of day, played at the Fussball machine. Aimée ordered a croque-monsieur from a waitress with red rose tattoos up her arm.

  Outside, passersby scurried through the gray evening light just sinking behind the eroding stone buildings. Mist lingered over the steps. Aimée tried to avoid the predatory gaze of a man in black denims and a blue turtleneck near the Fussball machine. She tapped her feet to the beat of the radio’s techno station and opened the newspaper to the headlines to read: COUNTERTER-RORISM POLICE DISCOVER EXPLOSIVES TRACED TO ARMATA CORSA.

  Her shoulders tensed. That accounted for the CRS presence outside in the square. And for a moment, she was afraid. Another building mined with explosives?

  She read the article: “Today a special counterterrorism unit, acting on a tip, found a cache of detonators and explosives in a government building.”

  A grainy photo showed a dismantled detonating device.

  She read further.

  Corsica has been plagued since 1975 by almost daily machine-gunnings and other attacks by a small but active, nationalist movement. Favored venues for Separatist attacks have been on the island of Corsica, and rarely in France until now. Most bombings have been designed to minimize risk to human life but maximize material damage. Explosions occur in the early morning hours when buildings are unoccupied. Corsican terrorists have targeted police stations, French government buildings, and the property of non-Corsicans on the island. They extort funds from outsiders through the imposition of a “revolution tax,” and punish those who fail to pay. Sources would not reveal the government building in Paris just targeted, only that the tête de Maure—a Separatist symbol pic- turing a black face with a white bandanna—was discovered. Links to a known Armata Corsa terrorist cell operating in the eighteenth arrondissement are being pursued. Ministry insiders indicate this was an attempt to embarrass the French government and pressure it into negotiations with fratricidal Mafia-style gangs that have jumped on the Separatist bandwagon.

  The tête de Maure, like the poster she’d seen somewhere. And Yann had said Lucien was a member of the Armata Corsa.

  From what she knew, Corsica had to stay French not only for the security of the holiday homes lining its pristine beaches, but also as a convenient military outpost. A strategic sentinel in the Mediterranean, home to the Mirage-4, the jet that carried an atomic bomb.

  Her mind raced into high gear. She took her notebook and wrote down what she knew so far. Zoe Tardou had recognized a man on the roof speaking Corsican about the planets and streams, before Jacques, who was half-Corsican, was murdered. Jacques had an affiliation with Zette, the murdered Corsican bar owner. Laure’s hands had borne traces of gunpowder residue with a high tin content. And she’d found a bullet that she hoped would match the tin content of the residue on Laure’s hands. Plans of a foiled plot on the Mairie in the eighteenth had been found near the place where Jacques was murdered.

  Nothing fit! And yet it reeked, worse than sour milk. Had Jacques enmeshed Laure, his unknowing partner, with a gang of Corsican Separatists? If only Laure were to regain consciousness. But what answers would she have if she did?

  The newspaper article indicated that a Corsican Separatist cell was operating in Montmartre. She pulled the hairbrush, containing a minirecorder in the handle, from her bag. One of René’s toys; he loved gadgets.

  Had it recorded?

  She took a toothpick from the ceramic holder standing on the white paper covering the table and stuck it in the rewind pinhole: a low whirr. Then she stuck the toothpick in Play. Zoe Tardou’s voice mingled with the shouts of the Fussbol players. Aimée rewound and replayed the conversation: “stream . . . searching,” the names of the planets. What did it mean?

  She’d copied it all in her notebook by the time her croque-monsieur arrived, a frugal bistro invention. Day-old bread was dipped in egg, fried with a slice of ham, melted cheese, and béchamel sauce, a filling meal on a winter day. She set her map of Zoe Tardou’s building and the courtyard and scaffolding and rooftop of Paul’s on the paper tablecloth. She added in the Dumpster where Yann Marant had found the diagram.

  Her cell phone rang.

  “Allô?”

  “That mec passed by me,” Cloclo said. “Twenty minutes ago.”

  Too late. Aimée hadn’t seen her arrive.

  “Where are you, Cloclo? I don’t see you on the street.”

  “House call for an old client,” she said. “I’m in Goutte d’Or. On rue Custine where it meets rue Doudeauville.”

  Or, as one politican commented, “where the bourgeois bohemian bobos met the boubous, colorful African immigrants’ robes.”

  “So he’s gone!”

  “Not if his kabob’s still grilling,” she said. “He went into Kabob Afrique. There’s a big line trailing out onto the street.”

  “Cloclo, you’re being watched,” Aimée said.

  “Men pay me for that, you know.”

  “I’m serious. Be careful. Work another beat for a few days.”

  “Vraiment?” Aimée heard a throaty laugh. “I could use some sun. Cannes, Menton, or do you suggest Cap Ferrat?”

  “Can you describe the guy?” She threw some francs onto the table.

  Just then the man who’d been ogling her walked over and took Aimée by the elbow.

  “Care for a drink?” he asked. “I’m partial to big eyes and long legs.”

  She knew his type; any encouragement and he’d be all over her like a rash.

  “Desolée, I feel the same,” she smiled. “But I’m partial to a brain between the ears.”

  She grabbed her coat.

  “Oooh, letting the skirt get away?” one of his friends sniggered as she left the café.

  She ran, the phone to her ear, into the wet street.

  “Like a . . . ,” Cloclo said, her voice wavering, “. . . that lizard that changes color.”

  A chameleon changed to fit its background, she thought.

  “Why do you say he’s a chameleon, Cloclo?”

  “. . . black hair, sideburns today, leather jacket . . .”

  “Careful, Cloclo, I mean it . . .”

  The line went dead.

  At least Cloclo was working somewhere else now and she had given Aimée a description. She ran down the Metro stairs, slid in her pass, and joined an older woman reading Le Figaro, waiting for the train. If she made a quick train connection she might get to the kabob place in time.

  She changed lines once and exited from Château Rouge station in seven minutes.

  Under a weak setting sun filtering through a break in the clouds, she saw awning-covered stands selling all types of bananas: short, thick, green, yellow, red, as well as stubby plantains. Men wearing long djellabas stood by upturned cardboard boxes on which tapes and “used” VCRs were displayed for sale. Laundry flapped, hanging from chipped metal balcony railings above, suspended from fissured buildings. As she walked by, women in colorful boubous shouted “Iso, iso,” hawking barbecued corn in plastic bags. Several discount travel shops advertised flights—Paris-Mali, for two thousand francs—on hand-lettered signs.

  The quartier reminded her of an Arab medina with its tangle of threadlike alleys, the perfume of oranges, and the cries of hawkers everywhere. She stood in the Goutte d’Or, “the golden drop” on the other side of Montmartre, named for the vineyards that once covered the slope. North African soldiers recruited for the First World War had found cheap lodgings here overlooking the Gare du Nord train tracks, after 1918. And the tradition continued; it was still cheap and even more rundown, teeming with Africans and Arabs and other segments of the “third world” according to conservative rightists and the encroaching bobos.
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br />   Aimée scanned the street and spied Kabob Afrique midblock.

  Thursday evening

  LUCIEN PUSHED OPEN THE corrugated metal siding that had been nailed over the warehouse door, slid out, and hitched the music case onto his back.

  Three years in Paris and he had achieved nothing.

  Kouros, he figured, had pulled out of the recording deal at the hint that he might be connected to terrorists. And now, instead of a SOUNDWERX contract, the law was after him and, almost worse, a fellow Corse had tried to frame him as a terrorist.

  In the damp street, a line of customers trailed out of the door of the kabob place. He noticed a jean-jacketed, spiky-haired woman peering into a shop window with her back to him. Her long black-stockinged legs ended in stiletto heels.

  He might as well call the Chatelet ethnic music organizer and make an appointment. Since his DJ jobs were in alternative clubs the flics didn’t police, he’d survive.

  He passed Kabob Afrique, its faded green shutters latched open. Right now, he’d prefer a canastrelli biscuit, the traditional late-afternoon Corsican treat, with wine. And to be near sun-drenched, rose-yellow stone houses, basking in the last copper rays of the sun. Instead, he stood in a densely packed lane of silvery gray nineteenth-century buildings, in the wan wintry light.

  The woman wearing the jean jacket was asking him something.

  “Pardon, Monsieur . . .” Her bag dropped on the cobblestones in front of him.

  He bent down to retrieve it at the same time she did. They knocked heads as their hands touched. “My fault, sorry,” she said.

  Her flushed cheeks, huge eyes, and striking face put him off balance. He’d forgotten other women, stunning women, existed.

  And then he saw fear in her eyes. She clutched her bag, stood, and retreated. She edged around the street corner into a narrow lane, getting away.

  Women! He readjusted his cetera case. Then he glanced down the lane. He was aghast to see the glint of a knife being wielded by a man who had cornered the woman against a pile of broken furniture.

  Thursday

  LAURE HEARD THE VOICES. Faraway voices, punctuated with beeps, and shuffling footsteps. Cold, she was so cold. And her head so heavy and cotton filled. She tried to speak but her dry, thick tongue got in the way.

  “What’s that?” said a young voice in her ear. “Good. I know you’re trying.”

  What were those noises? The sounds, the moaning. They came from her. She felt a searing pain in her side. A flash of white passed by her. Then a smiling face was looking at her, a warm damp washcloth stroked her brow. The monitor tinkled beside her.

  “Hello, Laure. You’re back with us now, aren’t you?”

  She nodded and felt a dull throb behind her eyes.

  “Try this.”

  Ice chips traced her lips, her fat tongue licked them greedily.

  “Slowly, Laure. You’re thirsty, non? Take it nice and slow.”

  She sensed heated blankets laid over her feet, hot-water bottles shoring up her side. The licks of ice were chilly and invigorating. Drops of water trickled down her eager, parched throat.

  She grew aware of shadows on the row of beds, the bustle of nurses, and the low monotone of a loudspeaker system somewhere in the background.

  “Someone’s here to see you, Laure,” the voice said. “Says he’s an old friend. A family friend.”

  Drooping eyes were watching her; a man sat in the chair next to her bed. His head nodded. “You had us worried, Laure. You look much better. Remember me, Laure?”

  The retirement party, the café, and Jacques. It all flooded back. This was Morbier, her father’s old colleague.

  “You don’t have to speak,” he told her. “Squeeze my hand if you understand.”

  She had to speak, to tell him about the roof, the scaffolding . . . she had to talk. About coming to, and the men, the snow in her face. And how they laughed. Those men. And their gun, the other gun. Someone had taken hers. They’d kicked her when she reached for it. The glint of metal from his pocket. How everything went black again.

  She spoke, but no sound came out.

  Thursday, Late Evening

  AIMÉE CURSED HER BAD luck. The mec who’d chased her after Zette’s murder was holding a knife to her face.

  “You don’t pay attention, do you?” the mec said. He’d backed her against rain-soaked broken chairs and old tables piled up in the alley, evidence of an eviction. This street lay off the beaten track and was deserted.

  “I don’t know what you mean. You must be confusing me with someone else.”

  She wanted to know whom he worked for. Why threaten her . . . here. But first things first.

  She grinned. “I get it now, big boy. If you like me, just ask.” She pointed to the Hôtel Luxe, a run-down, soot-blackened sagging hotel across the street. “For you, a five hundred franc special treatment.”

  A flutter of doubt appeared in his eyes. She was not the kind of hooker he was familiar with.

  “I don’t have to pay for it,” he boasted, advancing closer. “You’re the curious type.” He eyes traveled her legs. “Poking your nose in everywhere.”

  His leather pants glistened with beaded rain mist. Just let him take one step closer.

  “Respect is a two-way street, big boy.” She smiled and licked her lips. “Put that knife away and come here.”

  In his nanosecond of indecision, she kicked with all her might at his kneecap. He doubled over in pain, clutching his knee, and howled. The knife clattered on the cobblestones. Thank God for pointed stiletto heels.

  She scooped the knife up and took off. Tripped on a chair leg, scrambled, and pulled herself up the moss-embedded stone wall. At the corner she skidded into him again, the mec from the doorway whom she’d just bumped heads with. Deep-set, intense black eyes, chiseled features, black curly hair, sideburns: a good-looker, as Cloclo had said.

  “Looks like you can handle yourself,” he said.

  Lucky this time, she slipped the knife into her pocket.

  “You’re Lucien Sarti, right?” she asked.

  His concerned gaze changed to suspicion. “Who are you?”

  And then trouble walked up the street. The limping mec had a cell phone to his ear. Was he calling for reinforcements? He swung the thick leg of a broken chair at her.

  “Keep walking,” she said.

  From the frying pan into the fire. Why was Lucien Sarti here? And the mec? Had Cloclo set her up?

  “Quick,” she said, gesturing Lucien to a half-open gate. She hoped it led to another street, to escape.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are or how you know my name,” he began.

  “Explanations later. Hurry,” she said.

  He hesitated. She pulled him by the arm and they ran past filled Dumpsters beneath a row of rose bushes sheeted, ghostlike, against the frost with clear plastic. Two-story townhouses bordered the quiet impasse. A dead end. Aimée’s pulse quickened. Where could they go?

  Behind them, footsteps pounded. She turned left, up an unevenly paved passage, and ducked behind a wet hedge, pulling him by the arm to join her. They crouched in a gutter. His denim thigh rubbed hers. His look was intense and his breath was warm against her ear.

  “Why’s that mec chasing you?” he asked.

  She put her finger to her lips. From his backpack peeked an instrument case. On the right stood a Louis Philippe-style townhouse; oeil-de-boeuf round windows in its facade were like eyes watching them. She couldn’t see any doors leading from the courtyard to another street.

  She felt a prickling on her skin, gasped for air. The footsteps stopped. Receded. And then it was quiet.

  He stared at her as the water in the gutter gurgled over his feet. “He’s gone,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Sarti’s long black lashes were so close she could see how they curled.

  She stood, brushing off the sodden, dead leaves. Grime streaks and grease soiled her stockings. She had to collect herself, and try to get information
from him.

  “You’re looking for me. Why?” he asked.

  “I saw you in Montmartre the night the flic was shot.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “How did you find me? I don’t like flics. Like you.”

  “Did you shoot him?”

  His jaw dropped. “What kind of flic are you?”

  Why did he have to look vulnerable and fierce at the same time?

  “My friend was framed for the murder,” she told him. “And I’m not a flic, I’m a private detective.”

  Before she could ask more questions, an automatic garage door rolled up, revealing a late-model Mercedes driven by a frowning mustached man. “Allez-y! You’re trespassing on private property,” he said.

  With quick steps they walked back the way they had come. She peered into the street. All clear. She took a deep breath. And froze.

  The man who’d threatened her, along with two others with black caps, emerged grinning from the doorways. Reinforcements had arrived.

  “So you like foreigners, too,” the mec she had kicked said. “Looks like a Corsican, my specialty.”

  She glanced around the passage, recognized it for the kind of place where street hawkers had once stored their carts at night. A fire-alarm box was affixed to the stone wall. No time for anything else. She elbowed it hard, breaking the glass, and pulled the handle. Only a loud whir resulted. Weren’t these things supposed to send off an air raid-siren-like whoop?

  Another mec with black curly hair, wearing a leather jacket and boots, was just visible in a doorway. The hair on her neck rose. He could have been the musician’s brother. A twin brother. Her heart raced. If he was the one Cloclo meant, could they all be in league together?

  The musician took the knife from her and pushed her behind him.

  He spit and said something in Corsican. Her shoulders tensed, expectant.

  “Look, there are four of them . . .” she began. Her palms were damp. Where could they go?